The Green IT Review

Friday, 31 July 2009

Just to follow up on yesterday's posting on the renewable energy rankings, as has been pointed out, just buying renewable energy is not a solution to fighting climate change. The focus should be on greater energy efficiency first and renewable energy second. With renewables in short supply there needs to be a fair availability. (According to the latest monthly report from the US Energy Information Administration, in April this year renewable energy accounted for 11% of the supply in the US, which, incidentally, was ahead of nuclear).

In the case of the EPA rankings, I think it was initially just a means to encourage people to think about using renewables, including on-site generation, which is helpful. And to be fair, as I mentioned in the blog, it’s not just buying renewable energy that helps in the rankings but also supporting the process through RECS.

It would be useful, though, to see some reference to relative use of renewables vs non-renewables in the rankings. It's probably buried somewhere in CSR reports, CDP disclosures, etc.

So seriously, what did Dell do with all that renewable energy if it constituted 158% of its total energy requirements?